


You Are Home

by bombcollar



Category: Rayman (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-24
Updated: 2015-06-24
Packaged: 2018-04-06 00:15:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4200555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bombcollar/pseuds/bombcollar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You are Rayman and you have an important job to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Are Home

**Author's Note:**

> A snapshot fic going over some alternate takes on scenarios from Rayman Origins, 2 and 3, incorporating my headcanons for Ray. There's like no Rayman fics on here! What's up with that?

There is only darkness, and then light, dim, blue, filtered through the translucent skin of leaves. Insects swarm in the humid air, mosquitoes, bats, fireflies, things you’ve never seen before but their names come as easily to you as breathing. There are people gathered around you, nymphs, crouched, watching you from between curtains of hair that crawl with little bugs and writhe with vines, that smell of sea salt and burnt sugar and rotten meat. Some of them look unsure, even disappointed, casting small glances at one another.

The one in front, in green and red, reaches for you, smiles, parts lips that hide small cat fangs, says something, maybe your name, but you aren’t listening. You can’t, there’s too much to hear, the wind in the trees, the hum of many tiny wings, the quiet roar of water as it rushes underground, the groan of the land itself as it shifts ever so slowly beneath you, and the deep **beat beat beat** of its core resonating with your own.

You don’t listen, you just _run_ , past her into the trees, vines and leaves slapping you in the face, but you hardly notice. Lums trail you, trying to alight on you, attracted to your overflowing energy, but you’re too quick for them. There’s so much, so much and you want to know it _all_ , every stone, every blade of grass, every animal and fish and insect, every thorn and bramble even as they cut your skin, all of them reach out to you in welcome and acknowledgement, as if they’ve been waiting, and you’re going to meet them.

Hours later she tracks you down, exhausted and filthy and bruised, brushes your hair back and cups your face, tells you she’s so proud, so thrilled with your exuberance, and don’t mind the others, they’ll see how fantastic you are. You don’t have the words to answer her back, so you smile instead.

* * *

Much of the time, you sleep. It’s overwhelming, hearing and seeing and feeling so much at once, but when you have a buffer, like cool grass or soft sand or plush fur, it’s easier. In the muted dark you can focus on your heartbeat, and think and reflect, which is difficult when you’re awake and everything is racing, racing, going places you sometimes can’t follow. Sometimes you feel like you could lie down and sleep forever if you wanted to. Sometimes you actually do want that. But you can’t. You have a job to do.

* * *

Globox never stops talking. Normally such a stream of consciousness would bother you, but he never seems to expect you to say anything in return, so you can listen and zone in and out if you need to. He shows you things, like how to stay underwater without breathing (though it would be some time before you mastered that), how to nurture sickly plants, how to summon rainstorms.

You’re not nearly as good at talking as he is, and most of the time you just don’t want to speak period, but when you do, it comes easily when he’s the one listening.

* * *

In time, you learn much about the world you’ve been born to protect, its delicate balances at the mercy of its creator’s dreams. The ever-shifting political boundaries between the forest, swamp and seas, the uneasy peace between the Bird Queen’s subjects and the desert Knaaren, why and how the glaciers up north are full of angry sentient fruit. Teensies from all regions receive you like royalty and throw parties in your honor that last deep into the night and morning after. You learn focus from the mountain-dwelling Fakirs and their Knaaren acolytes, who prove to be far more laid-back than their desert brethren. They all welcome you in their unique ways, but nowhere feels more like home than the lush jungle and mangroves you were born in.

 _How do you like it?_ Polokus asks you one day, very suddenly. Prior to the question, you were lying on the soft moss watching some ants crawl single-file over your hand. He has to nudge you with his foot to get you to realize you’d been spoken to.

 _How... do you like it?_ He repeats, his broad smile splitting his face and his black eyes twinkling. _This world you’ve been... summoned to defend. Do you like it? It wouldn’t do at all, for you to be charged with protecting a world you don’t even like._

The idea of having to describe how you feel about this world is so daunting you feel a brief flutter of panic in your chest, but Polokus just smiles kindly, patiently, hands folded on his belly as he waits for your answer.

 _...I like it_ , you eventually answer. He laughs, reaches down to tousle your hair.

 _Excellent, wonderful. I like it too_.

2.

You can feel the world’s dying heartbeat in time with your own, fluttering, arrhythmic, like a moth with dampened wings. The floor below is metal, cold, with none of the natural ebb and flow, breathe and exhale, just a constant, thin buzz, unbroken in your skull. You’re here because you have failed, you have failed in the one thing, the _only_ thing you were put here to do, and you couldn’t do it, and now everybody, every single living thing, your mothers, your friends, they are all going to die because you just weren’t good enough.

The buzz is broken by steady mechanical thumping. footsteps. somebody is coming.

* * *

You were stripped of everything, your abilities and your dignity, but they could not rip your connection from you. To be torn from that, taken to places unknown, would be torture. That thread would always be there, connecting you, urging you back to a home that no longer was. Or maybe it would snap and leave you with a great emptiness where you once had purpose.

Even with the world fragmented and fraying, rotting deep beneath your feet, it welcomes you, forgiving, loving, knowing you will try again. There are things you have to do, but for a moment you sit, feet dangling in the cool water dappled with sunlight and fallen leaves. You could almost pretend nothing is wrong.

* * *

The guardian of the cave extends a skeletal arm toward you, fingers dripping with gold coins that seem to bear their own odd internal glow despite the darkness of the cavern. One rolls toward your feet. You pick it up.

 _You’ve bested me..._ His voice creaks like mummified tendons. _My treasure is yours, take what you want._

You let the coin roll out of your palm and turn to face him. _I live in a swamp. What would I need gold for?_

It’s the most you’ve said in a while.

 _Mmmm, fair point,_ says the guardian.

* * *

 They’ve broken into the tomb, defiled it, built security devices and outposts into its walls like parasitic corals. Massive metal drums drift in the waterways, oozing green-black toxins from their rusting hulls. It makes you sick, but you’re getting so close. You can’t stop now, as much as you want to remove yourself from this corrupted place. To run back to the warm, earthy comfort of the forest, and forget the rot would soon reach every corner of the planet.

There are things in the water, dead-eyed and skeletal, digging their decaying claws into your raft as you drift past. Most dislodge easily when you kick them, disintegrating under your touch, but others are more persistent, shrieking wetly as they swipe at you. The channel roils with corpses brought to unnatural life by their disturbed rest, or perhaps possessed by things that had crawled out of the dark cracks in the earth when the rot began. They’ll drag you down into it if you don’t keep moving.

* * *

 _The old guardians... they just went mad. That’s why they didn’t know who you were, and tried to stop you,_ Ly says as she sits cross-legged in front of you, weaving a little crown of flowers and vines. The flowers are white daisies and purple wasp-mimics. The vines are creeping fluros. Who named them that? _That’s what happens to guardians sometimes, when people forget they exist. But I’m sure that won’t happen to you._ She plops the crown on your head, arranges it so it sits nicely. _We wouldn’t leave you alone to lose your mind like that._

You don’t reply, thinking about the flowers. She hesitates and takes your hands. _Not even gods are perfect, you know. Sometimes they forget things. Or they don’t look far enough into the future to anticipate problems._

_Not thinking that locking someone underground for eternity might be bad for them seems like kind of an obvious mistake._

She blinks, seeming surprised that you’ve spoken, even a little worried. Like this wasn’t something that had occurred to her, or something she hadn’t wanted to be reminded of. _Maybe you should take it up with their creator, then. I’m sure he’d listen to you._

You think you’ll do just that. But when you find him, he’s asleep again, somewhere far away and unreachable. He doesn’t even wake when you climb onto him and shake him by the shoulders. Maybe if he didn’t sleep so much, he wouldn’t have so many nightmares.

* * *

The world is littered with the pirates’ scraps. Broken ships lodged in the canopies, canons as large as whales rusting in the swamps, metallic skulls and limbs swallowed by the grass and mud. It will be a long time before nature reclaims them and eats them away to nothing. Already the wood is sodden, growing mushrooms and feeding termites. You help gather what metal parts you can and take them to be melted in the lava beneath the mountains, but the largest objects must stay where they are. Even they will provide shelter and structure. The glade will grow around them until there is nothing left to see, and the world will forget they were ever there.

3.

The council is not a place you like to be. Even though your mothers insist it’s important and you have to be there to know what needs to be addressed even though you don’t, you totally do not, because that’s your job to know, that’s what they made you for or did they forget already? The meetings are incredibly boring and you can never pay attention or keep still long enough to get through them, and when everybody talks over one another it gets hard to even keep calm, and you have to leave when that happens or you’ll end up yelling at everybody and then you get scolded by one of your moms and it’s just better to not go at all.

You know the rest of them don’t want you there. It’s better to just let you do your job. You aren’t perfect but goodness knows you do your best. It’s enough to have all these other murmurs and whispers and wingbeats and footsteps in your head all the time, you don’t need the council’s voices too. You need to be out, in motion, in the treetops and the rivers. Ly understands. But she’s off somewhere, and it’s late at night, the forest in full fluorescent bloom. Sleep is calling you.

* * *

The rate at which they multiply is frightening. You've faced threats from individual malcontents and from outside invaders, but never one that took advantage of the planet's very life force. Lums on their own were tiny, harmless motes, possessed of little intellect but innately drawn to magical energy. These _things_ were intelligent, ruthlessly organized, but where did it come from? They multiplied faster than they could be destroyed, spread rapidly to most corners of the Glade, built enormous structures in the forests in _days,_ and all under your radar because they were the same energy you lived and breathed as long as you've been alive. It's terrifying to think that you might have let this happen. It's only by an extremely narrow margin that you avoided having the heart corrupted, and you might not get that lucky again.

* * *

 You can see the mansion’s lights in the distance, its yellow windows seeming to hover disembodied in the gloom. Though it looks warm and sheltering, and you desperately want to rest after hours fighting sackcloth monsters, slogging through mud and picking leeches off yourself, there’s probably a reason it’s so isolated. Nobody builds a house in the middle of a deadly swamp when they want company.

_In my family, we have a tradition. You see-_

As your host speaks, your gaze starts to wander to the paintings on the walls, all depicting various lanky, sallow creatures, not unlike himself, posing in uniform with firearms and dead animals. The paint looks roughly textured, oozing in the humidity. You turn back to him with some reluctance, even though you really should be more polite, with him letting you inside his house and all. What had he been talking about?

_-can only be a true Shoedsackovskaian when he or she bags a truly **exemplary** kill..._

It seems like he lives alone, although you’re certain you heard crying or whimpering earlier when he led you to the lushly decorated dining room. The table could seat more than a dozen people. Who needs this much space? Seems like a waste. You know what isolation does. It would be much better to live with somebody else. Imagine how many people could fit in such a mansion...

_-have **never** seen the likes of you, why, they’d have no choice but to accept me! And so kind of you to deliver yourself to my doorstep. But I know what you are._

That manages to snap you out of your distracted thoughts. What you are? You look at him, waiting for him to elaborate, which he does, gladly, grinning and baring two rows of tiny flat teeth. It’s not a look you care for, but at the same time, you’re curious. Nobody’s ever looked at you like that before.

 _Yes, yes... guardian. Protector. Fine job you’ve done so far._ He strokes the barrel of his rifle like a lover. _But... a world at equilibrium is dreadfully boring. No challenge in it. Were we to remove that stopper, we could have one last great hurrah, one last game, pitting the hunters against the fiercest abominations to crawl from the void. Wouldn’t that be exciting?_

He draws, reducing the chair back where your head had been only a moment ago to splinters, then overturns the table, showering dinnerware and cutlery to the floor. _Get running!_ he shrieks, but you already are, flying down the narrow, hazy hallway, his cries echoing after you. _Count Razoff, god killer! I like the sound of it!_

* * *

They gather around you, reach for you, touch your soft palms with bony claws that were only hours ago swiping at you with intent to kill, whispering prayers, asking to be blessed, asking why, why would their god choose you, why would he fail their champion? Perhaps he wasn’t such a worthy champion at all, if such a measly outsider could defeat him.

There are so many of them, pressing in around you even as their leader orders them to give you space, and you have to find your friend, where did he _go_? He was so afraid. You want to give them all what they want, to pass on whatever blessing they think you can impart, but you’re no god, you have a job to do and time is running out.

* * *

Back when you were given your blessing, you saw it only for a moment. A pair of eyes, enormous, glowing blue-white and crystalline, but it came nowhere close to the real thing.

The great bird perches on the jagged lip of the tower, folding wings so huge and black they make the sky look starless. At first it does not speak, and then, with great reverence, it bows, lowering its enormous head to both of you, one clawed hand at its chest and the other extended. You hesitantly mimic the gesture while Globox stares in awe. The bird god blinks, beak opening in what might be a silent chuckle of amusement, and delicately picks up the remains of its scepter amid the shattered pieces of its former champion. Then, it spreads its wings, beating them once with a sound like a thunderclap as it takes off into the night. Seems you’ll have to find your own way back down.

With the unnatural glow faded from the sky, you can see miles and miles of the surrounding desert, shimmery and dreamlike with the heat still rising from the sands. The stars above seem close enough to touch, burning blue and purple with a clarity you’ve never seen. You almost raise a hand to try and brush the pinkish moon that sits directly overhead, but Globox grabs you before you can, spinning you gleefully in a circle.

_We did it! We did it, we saved Andy! Oh, and the Tetris! It was huge! That’s gotta be at least the second-biggest bird I ever saw! Aw man, we shoulda asked it for a ride huh? How are we gonna get down? We got the ship but it mighta gotten a little busted in that last fight. Ooh maybe-_

_Globox_. You put your hands on his shoulders. _Shh. Listen..._

He quiets, following your gaze upwards. _...I don’t hear anything._

 _I know._ You smile tiredly up at the stars. With the black lums gone, the world isn’t quiet, but it’s drifted back into a harmony that reaches you even atop the tower. A soft, grateful song that you never tired of, that no tribute or ceremony could ever hope to match. Why would you ever need anything else? This is what you were made for.

 

 


End file.
